“The Most Natural Function of Women”: Ambiguous Party Policies and Female Experiences in Socialist Bulgaria

  • Ulf Brunnbauer
Chapter

Abstract

In her 1962 book, Bourgeois Remnants in the Attitudes towards Women (Burzhuazni otstatŭtsi v otnosheniiata kŭm zhenata) Raina Pesheva, one of the leading Bulgarian ethnographers of her time, deplored the “traditional” mindset of Bulgarian men in questions of family, authority, and gender roles. She noted that husbands expected their wives to care for the household, while they enjoyed themselves in their spare time.1 Indeed, even women in high-status positions did not receive enough assistance from their partners, which affected their chances at professional advancement. Therefore, in applications for divorce many women in Bulgaria referred to their husband’s “bourgeois and reactionary conception of marriage.”2 Thus, Pesheva urged men to share household chores and criticized state authorities for not doing enough to promote women into positions of power.

Keywords

Female Employment Household Chore Muslim Woman Oral History Socialist Society 
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Notes

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© Shana Penn and Jill Massino 2009

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  • Ulf Brunnbauer

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